NBA: LeBron James wants to team up with me

Guys there is already content on patreon, if anyone wants to become a jonnin, hogake or God Shinobi.

patreon.com/Chuga320 (Have than 50 additional chapters)

—————————————————————————————————————————————

As Michael Jordan, the greatest scorer in history, and the head coach who created two Bulls dynasties, in Phil Jackson's mind, Wang Chong's level of threat is no less than that of Jordan, almost on the same level.

Considering that Wang Chong can still maintain a 40% shooting percentage from beyond the three-point line and the current situation where three-pointers represent an increasing proportion of points in the league, Wang Chong could even be stronger than Jordan in terms of pure offensive firepower!

Therefore, even though Kobe is the shooting guard closest to Jordan, he does not intend to let Kobe and Wang Chong score at a dizzying pace.

When the situation on the court fell into this state, Phil Jackson immediately seized the opportunity to call a timeout and adjust his tactics, trying to hinder the opponent's situation.

Although Kobe was a little dissatisfied, he pinched his nose and endured it for the sake of the team winning.

He really couldn't afford to lose.

Since O'Neal and Wang Chong left the Lakers, they had won championships one after another. Only he, the core of the team retained by the Lakers, had not won anything so far. Even the MVP he won last season has been questioned and is considered to be due to his success, a success that the media power stole from Wang Chong.

In addition, Kobe also lost the gold medal to Wang Chong in the Olympic Finals. It can be said that Wang Chong had suppressed him in recent years and he had been unable to turn it around.

The strong sense of humiliation and unwillingness made him very anxious to win this championship to prove his worth. Therefore, even if the coach asked him to avoid a head-to-head confrontation with Wang Chong, the paranoid Kobe still endured it.

Of course, this is only temporary. Once he makes a concession and the team still cannot win the game, in the next series, Kobe will definitely play according to his own ideas, and it will not be easy for anyone.

After Kobe passed the ball, the Lakers' offensive rhythm became much smoother. Jackson's triangle offense had something to offer. With the support of Pau Gasol as the organizer of the axis, the Lakers' offense became more fluid.

In the first quarter, the two teams were tied 28-28, and the battle was even.

But after the second quarter, the Lakers began to lose some support.

In the second quarter, Wang Chong's offensive frequency became more frequent, bombarding the Lakers' defensive line indiscriminately. This crazy attack, without regard for physical effort, made it difficult for the Lakers to resist. Not only that, on the defensive side, Garnett and Xiao. Gasol and Gasol also began to increase the intensity of their confrontations. The Lakers' shooting percentage was affected and inevitably fell. They only scored 19 points in a single quarter, but the Bulls scored 30 points with Wang Chong's 21 points in a single quarter.

At halftime, the score between the two teams was 58-47, and the Bulls were leading by 11 points in a single quarter.

In fact, there is a gap between the two teams in terms of lineup strength. Although Phil Jackson's triangle offense is very powerful, the defensive strength of the Bulls under Tom Thibodeau's direction has reached the peak of the league and even the peak of history.

Thibodeau is famous for being strong in defense and weak in offense, but the Bulls have Wang Chong, the offensive core in individuals, and Billups, who has rich game experience, so there is no need to worry about the offensive end.

The Lakers, who were behind in the first half, could not recover in the third quarter of the second half.

During the Lakers' two consecutive championships, there were several main advantages over other teams. The first was, of course, Kobe Bryant, the strongest scorer in the league at that time, and the second was the height advantage established by Gasol, Odom, and Bynum. The three tallest players on the team, the third is the advanced tactical system brought by Phil Jackson, and the last point is the league-leading bench lineup.

Led by the best sixth man, Lamar Odom, other bench gangsters like Ariza, Shannon Brown, Jordan Farmar, and others are quite outstanding in their ability to score points.

Of course, no matter how powerful the bench is, they are still bench players. The Lakers' bench is very strong when they play on the court, and all of them are like All-Stars. However, once the team is at a disadvantage, they cannot be relied upon to change the game and help when the ball goes against them. The main players recover from the decline during the bench time.

With an 11-point deficit in the first half, it was already a huge headwind. In addition, the depth of the Bulls' bench was no worse than the Lakers, with players like Paul Millsap and excellent players like Sessions. They didn't give the Lakers' bench any chance to score.

Not only that, the Lakers lost another 6 points during the bench time. When the third quarter ended, the point difference between the two teams had reached 17 points!

In the final quarter of the game, Kobe, unwilling to fail like this, began to imitate Wang Chong from earlier and took crazy shots to try to save the game.

But Wang Chong knew Kobe very well. He knew the opponent's character and directly organized a double team against the opponent in the final quarter.

Kobe is the type of player who knows you're going to double-team him, but still acts with determination. Occasionally, when he feels really good, he can indeed go against the tide and face two, three, or even four or five defenders forcing shots and making them, but most of the time, what everyone hears is the familiar sound of hitting the iron.

This time was no exception.

In the final quarter, Kobe took 9 shots and only made 2 goals. He barely scored 10 points with 6 of 6 free throws. However, the point difference between the two teams was 17 points by itself.

With a score of 104:82, the Bulls finally got their first victory in the Finals with a large 22-point advantage at home, leading the series 1:0.

It was a classic win for the Bulls.

As the offensive core of the team, Wang Chong took on the main offensive tasks of the team. He scored 43 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists, including 32 points in the first half alone. The Bulls scored 21 points in the second quarter. They were ahead.

In the second half, when the team had an absolute advantage, only 11 shots less were made, resulting in a total of 43 points. Bulls fans fully believe that if the game situation were more anxious, Wang Chong could probably score 50+ points in a single quarter. He has that much strength.

In comparison to Wang Chong, although Kobe also scored 35 points in this game, including 2 of 9 shots in the final quarter, his shooting percentage in the game was only 39%, less than 40% of Wang Chong, whose shooting percentage remains consistently above 50%. There is a clear gap in efficiency.

Moreover, during the game, Kobe also took the initiative to avoid confrontations, and the gap in scoring ability between the two became obvious.

"The Bulls won by a large margin at home! The dominance of the 73-win team is truly extraordinary. Even the Lakers, the kings of the Western Conference, are helpless."

"The Lakers must solve a problem if they want to win: the guard Wang Chong. As long as Wang Chong can maintain an efficient scoring rate, they will not be able to win the game."

Everyone knows that you can defeat the Bulls by protecting Wang Chong, but understanding it is one thing, and being able to do it is another matter.

The Lakers' defense against Wang Chong is already quite good. The forward Ron Artest, who is the best second defensive player of the season, watches him throughout the game, which can be called a candy-like entanglement.

But the problem is that Wang Chong's technical characteristics are not something that a defensive player like Artest, who is good at using his body to apply pressure and limit his opponents, can easily defend against.

In terms of strength, Wang Chong's strength of 63 is definitely incomparable to Artest, who had a strength of more than 80 in his prime. But basketball has never been a game about who is stronger; otherwise, there would be many more forces in the league. crushing O'Neal, the super-heavy center.

Not to mention the current Wang Chong, even when Artest plays against Durant, he rarely manages to limit the opponent.

The two have played against each other in a total of 35 games in their careers. Under Artest's defense, Durant averaged 27.7 points per game and shot 47% from the field, which is almost the same as his career average.

In fact, not only against Artest, Durant has performed well against most of the famous forward defensive experts in the league. Perhaps occasionally he would have a poor performance in one or two games due to being attacked, but as long as you look at the overall data, including facing the best defensive forward players like Leonard, James, and Draymond Green, he can maintain an efficient performance.

In no way, with the advantage of height and wingspan, and his extremely accurate mid-range shots, he is almost unsolvable on the offensive side and has no way to defend against. This is why Durant is called the greatest scorer in history.

The loss in the first game made the Lakers realize that it is definitely impossible to defend Wang Chong one-on-one.

Many teams in the league have given other responses before: double teams.

Wang Chong's ability to break double teams is relatively poor. On one hand, his height makes his dribbling center of gravity too high. Even though his dribbling ability value is as high as 92, he still cannot avoid being easily intercepted.

On the other hand, breaking double teams also requires a lot of physical reserves for support. After all, when one is against two on the court for a long time, the physical consumption is obvious. Wang Chong's physical strength was previously one. After being double-teamed, to avoid rapid physical consumption, he can only avoid his advantage.

But things are different now.

Wang Chong, whose physical strength has reached 99%, is not afraid of physical effort at all. In fact, there were signs of this during the previous Olympics, but obviously, not many people in the NBA paid attention.

Compared to the tight NBA schedule, the Olympics only have a few games in total, and with 40 minutes of play, it is not surprising that players are full of energy.

This season, although Wang Chong led the team to an impressive 73-win and 9-loss regular-season record, his performance in personal data is not as impressive as in previous seasons, especially the season with 35.6 points, although his contribution to defense. The end is impressive, but not many people realize that Wang Chong's physical strength is strong enough to take care of both offense and defense at the same time, and still have some leeway.

The Lakers didn't know this, and the result was that they fell into a trap in the second game of the Finals.

On June 7, the second game of the Finals was still played at the Chicago United Center, home of the Bulls.

In this game, the Lakers organized a double team to look after Wang Chong, and the quality of the double team was quite high. Kobe, the best first defense, and Artest, the second defense, formed a double team. Wang Chong.

The two players with excellent external defensive abilities exerted great pressure on Wang Chong, causing his number of shots to drop drastically. But still, Wang Chong relied on his off-ball movement and free throws under the screen, scoring 22 points in the game, and his shooting percentage was 46%.

The cost of the Lakers' double team on Wang Chong was that six players from the Bulls scored in double figures. Among them, Billups scored 21 points and 8 assists, and made 5 of 8 three-pointers due to the lack of defensive strength of the Lakers. outside.

In addition, Wang Chong's explosive scoring power on the offensive side was limited, but as a result, the proportion of his energy investment on the defensive side also increased. The super defensive range brought by his height and wingspan makes him a small Garnett.

Since the Bulls have two Garnetts, their defensive intensity has reached an unprecedented level.

The result was that Kobe Bryant was no better than Wang Chong. He made 8 of 24 field goals and only shot 33% from the field. He only relied on free throws to score 28 points. His score was 6 points higher than Wang Chong's, but his efficiency was still crushed.

The final score between the two teams was 108:99. The Bulls achieved another victory, leading 2:0, and won both games at home.

Although the score between the two teams in this game was not so disparate, and the point difference was only a single digit, it did not affect the feelings of concern and despair among Lakers fans.

This game made them realize that the Bulls are actually not a team that can easily win by limiting the scoring Wang Chong and Billups are players with good strength and big heart. In critical moments, they are fully competent, and both of them are. Good on offense and defense, they have no obvious technical deficiencies and are hard to contain in one-on-one defense, especially Billups. For the most part, they're all Fisher for the Lakers, so Don. Don't be too happy.

I must admit that the Bulls lineup structure is perfect, obviously better than the Lakers, especially on the outside. With Wang Chong and Billups as two ball-handling spots, they won't have any double-team limit.

Now all the pressure is on the Lakers.

After two games in the finals, the Lakers, who were already down 0:2, can hardly back down in the next home game. Once the score is 0:3, they will advance to the finals. over.

In NBA history there has never been a situation where a comeback was possible even when they were down 0:3, let alone 0:3, even when it was 1:3, it has happened twice as many times in as many years. I can count them all on one hand.

If the Lakers want to win the Finals, then the next two home wins are crucial and they can't lose either.

But the question is, how can the Lakers win?

In the first two games on the Bulls' home court, double-teaming Wang Chong would give other Bulls players a chance to perform, but they would lose.

If you don't double team with Wang Chong, if people underestimate you and give you more than 40 or even more than 50 points in a single game, your loss will only be worse.

Although both teams are the strongest in the East and West, the battle royal showed that the strength gap between the two sides is still quite obvious. Although the Lakers have featured Artest this season to target Wang Chong, it still doesn't matter. No help.

In a pessimistic mood, it was time for June 9, G3 of the Finals, the Lakers faced the Bulls at home, this will also be an important life and death battle for the Lakers.

End of this chapter

Note: Hi if you really like NBA novels, you can support me either in this pg with stones, reviews etc, or in patreon since the niche of sports and specially NBA is very small is Webnovel since people prefer to read Naruto, Pokemon, comics etc.